Illusions
by Phoenix.G.Fawkes
Summary: The words ‘sleeping with the enemy’ have taken a whole new, darker meaning. Heidi’s POV on Sylar after the events in ‘5YG.’


**Disclaimer:** Heroes belongs to Tim Kring.

**Spoilers:** 'Five Years Gone'.

**Characters:** Heidi/Sylar, Peter, Mohinder, Matt.

**Rating:** R for swearing and non-graphic sex.

**Prompt:** 42. Mask. Written for heroes50 table.

**Summary:** The words 'sleeping with the enemy' have taken a whole new, darker meaning. Heidi's POV on Sylar after the events in '5YG.'

Music: Let the record show – Emilie Autumn

* * *

**Illusions**

The bed is warm and comfortable, the mattress perfectly molded to her body, and there's no reason really for her to open her eyes, no reason to leave the wonderful land of her dreams when she feels so at peace there.

The alarm clock, though, seems to have a mind of its own.

With a muffled groan, she turns around in her bed and covers her head with a pillow, refusing to open her eyes in spite of the ringing alarm piercing her ears. _Just a few minutes more_, she silently pleads. All she asks for are a few more minutes of quiet before her day turns into the chaotic whirlwind her life has become, all she wants is a moment to dwell in dreams and fantasies of more peaceful times when everything was easier.

The thrice-damned alarm clock finally falls silent, the following silence soon broken by a soft chuckle.

'Not quite a morning person, are you?'

She grumbles something unintelligible even to her own ears, which provokes another chuckle, this time followed by a gentle kiss on her neck. She sighs, this time with a content smile as she feels her nightdress' straps sliding down her shoulders and a warm, strong hand caressing her back underneath the silky fabric. The pillow is removed and she finally opens her eyes, looking up to meet her husband's gaze.

'Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,' he says, a smile in his voice, and she turns around to place a kiss on his mouth. What starts as a simple kiss soon evolves into much more when his hands slide down her back, cup her butt and press her body against his, their hips starting to rock in unison, her heartbeating racing, his skin burning under her touch. They make love slowly, no need to rush or haste. They know each other's bodies better than they know their own, years of tracing each other's skin to know their route with no need for maps. She has memorized all the buttons she needs to hit to fasten his pulse, he has studied the spots where her skin turns into flames at his touch, their rythym is a well-practiced dance that still manages to keep the thrill of their early years.

'Love you,' she gasps before she comes. She feels his hold tightening on her hips as he thrusts harder, his intense, burning gaze never leaving her eyes.

'_Love you too._'

-

'Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?'

He smiles at her, somewhat tiredly, and squeezes her hand.

'No, it's okey. You're busy enough as it is, and I don't want you to overexert yourself.'

She arches an eyebrow.

'You are aware that I'm not made of glass, aren't you?'

However, she knows he does have a point. Today she faces the prospect of several meetings with more committees than she cares to count, and lately she hasn't been feeling that well. The constant worrying and tension have taken their toll on her and she's afraid it's beginning to show in the shadows under her eyes and the pallor of her skin. The reasonable thing is to stay behind, but it's hard when she thinks of what her husband is going to endure today.

'I just worry, that's all,' he says as he rises from breakfast table. 'I'll call you as soon as the ceremony is over, okey?' He bends over and places a kiss on her lips. 'Tell the boys I wished them luck on school for me, okey?'

She nods and with one last smile, he's gone.

-

They don't want to let her in, but she's been sitting on her hands all day waiting for an explanation and if another moment passes without news on her husband she'll lose her mind.

'Out of my way,' she snarls and the guards – whether from the Secret Service or Homeland Security she can no longer tell – step aside almost at once. If she needed further proof that the world as they know it has turned upside down, their lives now in disarray, this is it. The First Lady might have earned quite a reputation among her husband's employess, who have learnt to watch out for her steeled eyes and crisp tone, but even she cannot waltz into the Oval Room without warning.

Three men stand in the middle of the room, gesticulating furiously. She recognizes the man with dark curls and tanned skin at once; whereas the identity of the pale, plump man standing next to him takes her a little more time to figure out. As for the third one, his back is turned to her and she can't see his face, although she can almost sense the waves of rage radiating from him.

She has to step closer so their heated words start to make sense, and soon Dr. Suresh's familiar, measured voice reaches her ears – except this time it's neither measured nor calm.

'_Sylar_? All this time…?' His voice shakes, a note of unadulterated horror in his tone. 'Are you certain? I mean, _absolutely_ certain?'

The man with his back turned to her clenches his fists, which turn into a blue hue.

'I know what I saw, Mohinder. My brother couldn't walk through walls, remember?'

That voice… She freezes on the spot. She hasn't heard that voice in years, not since the two brothers had that blazing quarrel that tore apart their family forever. She thought she was never going to hear that voice ever again, and she certainly wouldn't have expected to find him here of all places, talking to the men that have become his sworn enemies.

'And he showed me his real face, the fucking son of a bitch,' he goes on, pure hatred dripping from each one of his words. 'He was showing off, and with good reason… He has Ted Sprague's hability now and…' His voice trembles. 'I think he can regenerate, too.'

The man in charge of all the security of the most influential country in the world lets out a gasp of shock and covers his stricken face with his hands.

'Claire Bennet,' he whispers. 'I… I didn't know…'

Dr. Suresh's eyes widen in horror and the other man's head jerks up.

'You… You handed Claire over to him? You… _son of a bitch_!'

'I didn't know!' Parkman shouts, raising his hands. 'I didn't –'

'You can read thoughts! You can, and you gave him Claire all the same!'

'Peter, please –'

But it's already too late: Peter has launched himself forward, tackling the director of Homeland Security, and his hands close in around his neck.

'Claire is dead,' he hisses, his hands glowing blue, then red. 'You handed Claire over to him, you son of a –'

'Peter, don't!'

Suresh tries to grab the man's shoulders, but some invisible hand pushes him away. The temperature in the room seems to rise up until it feels like their surroundings are melting around them and perhaps it is so, because Peter's hands are now in flames as Parkman chokes and hisses in pain.

'Peter,' she hisses, her voice low and lethal. He pays no attention to her. '_Peter_,' she repeats in her most dangerous tone, the one that's oddly reminiscent of her late mother-in-law's voice. That gets his attention.

'What the…?' he begins, turning his head. At the sight of her he gasps in shock, releasing Parkman's throat, which already has angry red marks and blisters all over it. Peter's eyes widen as though he's never seen her before. And perhaps it's partly true, because she's certain she's never been this upset, this downright terrified as she is now.

'Peter,' she says, her voice steady even though inside her everything is falling apart, 'what's going on?'

He stares at her in shock and horror, and in his widened eyes she can catch a glimpse of the boy she once knew. Her heart clenches when she sees his expression turn into one of guilt and pity.

'Peter…' It takes her an inhuman effort to make the words come out as her world crumbles around her, 'where is my husband?'

-

She sits on the windowsill, November's chilly breeze cooling her pale skin. She closes her eyes, trying not to see the guards wandering beneath her window. Parkman doesn't believe _he_ will be suicidal enough to return now that they know his true identity, but it's better to be safe than sorry and so her house is even more guarded than she ever believed possible._ Just in case_, Parkman said, and she doesn't know whether he was trying to reassure her or himself.

She hasn't told her children yet, not the whole story. There are things she still is struggling to comprehend herself and she doesn't think they are ready, although probably it's Heidi herself the one that's not prepared to deal with the truth just yet.

The shock and incredulity are slowly wearing off, leaving only hurt and horror in their wake. Hurt at all the lies her own husband told her, hurt that twists in her gut like a sharp knife when she thinks of men soaring up the sky of their own accord and family secrets buried so deep they will never see the light of day. Hurt that turns into the worst pain she has ever experienced when she thinks of the fate her husband faced, agonizing torture that punctuates every second, every single intake of breath with the words _Nathan's dead, Nathan's dead_ pounding inside her skull, tearing her heart apart.

She feels horror as well. Sickening, nauseting horror at the world's ignorance, horror at her own blindness. Dr. Suresh tried to calm her down, telling her that man couldn't have been impersonating her husband during the last five years, that it probably was something recent. In Peter's eyes she saw he did not believe such thing, but there still is enough kindness left in him to keep his doubts quiet for her sanity's sake.

She knows the truth, though. She knows the precise moment in which her husband stopped being himself and his life was stolen by this… this monster, this creature with a familiar mask, this wolf in sheep's clothing.

Ever since the terrible tragedy that stroke their hometown, their country, her husband was distant and cold. As he rose as the world's new heroe, as he became the leader that would steer a nation towards safety, her husband started to disappear. She saw less and less of him and at first she tried to be understanding, she really did. He pushed her away and she accepted it, he grew more and more withdrawn and she didn't say a word. She knew a terrible burden had been thrust upon his shoulders, she knew that the rift between him and his brother had tore his soul apart, especially as it was so soon followed by his mother's demise. She knew all those things, but she couldn't help thinking that the man she had once fallen in love had vanished, leaving an empty shell behind.

He was elected president as she knew he would, and a part of her became resigned to her fate: she had lost her husband forever. If he had busied himself with speeches and meetings before, now that the future of America lay in his hands she would never see him again.

Fate, however, had strange ways to twist itself. One day, only a week after they had moved into the White House, he saw her staring at him and smiled. A warm, real smile, followed by a kiss on the cheek and a 'how are you doing, honey?' She froze in shock, but he didn't seem to notice. She decided to take her chance and wrapped her arms around him, half expecting him to push her away as he had done before. Instead, though, he hugged her back for a moment, then said he had work to do and left.

It was the most affectionate gesture she had received from him in months.

She thinks now that she should have guessed it the first time they slept together after he became president. She was the one who approached him, confident by now that he had warmed to her again, and he let her have her way, almost as though he didn't know how to stop her. It had been strange, since he had rarely let her take the lead without a fight before, and he seemed hesitant and awkward, his hands waiting for her directions, his eyes travelling over her body like it was the first time he saw her. Back then she thought it was just because they hadn't shared a moment together in a very long time. She'd been naïve, so unforgivable naïve when she'd assumed that soon they would fall back into normalcy.

Against all odds, they did. He stopped pushing her away, and even though he became increasingly busier, he always tried to spend some time alone with her. If there were any signs, if there were times when he was too gentle or a tad harsher than he should have been, if his words not always added up and he mixed dates and memories, she was too happy to notice, believing as she did that she had finally gotten her husband back.

What a fool she was.

While her husband decayed, buried only God knows where, it was _his_ hands stroking her cheeks, it was _his_ lips kissing her goodnight, _his_ mouth devouring her whole. It was his eyes she looked into when she said _I love you_, it was his skin she scratched with her nails. She shivers, not from the cold but the horror of it all. She feels tainted, broken, violated. She let him, the monster that murdered her husband and so many others, have her body, her soul and mind. She let him wrap his arms around her at night, she let him see her at her weakest moments. And all this time, she had been blind.

Parkman tells her he won't be stupid enough to come back. Suresh assures her she will be safe from him now that they know the truth. Peter swears to her he will avenge his brother's and her husband's death. She tries to look calm and reassured in front of them, but she's dead cold inside.

Because she might not know how his abilities work, she never heard what his real voice sounds like. She might not know his history, no one ever told her where he came from. But she knows him. She knows him well enough after sharing his bed and his life for all this time.

And she knows he will come back, if not for her, then for the life growing now inside her, the blessing turned into a curse, the spawn that's eating her from the inside out.

He will come back to take the child with him, that much she knows. But what she doesn't know is whether when the time comes he will show his real face, whether it will be his own eyes the ones that'll seek hers.

Or perhaps he will be in disguise, wearing the façade he has used for so long now. Perhaps he will speak to her with her husband's voice and try to touch her with her husband's hands like he has done so many times in the past. Perhaps he'll enjoy torturing her by taunting her with old memories and lost hopes.

She does know he will come back one day, when they are least expecting him. She knows he will attack when they are not prepared to face him.

What she doesn't know, what she doesn't want to even think about, is whether she will be strong enough to do what she must and kill him even if he hides underneath a mask of her husband's face or whether she will fall prey to the illusion one last time.


End file.
